They flank me - depression on my left, loneliness on my right. They don't need to show their badges. I know these guys very well. ... Then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity; but he always does that.

Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?

I consider a good dinner party at our house to be where people drink and eat more than they're meant to.

God wants us to be in joy, God wants us to be happy.

I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.

When I read the article [in The New Yorker] by David Grann, I was very struck by people responding to the article, of people thinking I was such a hero and what a wonderful person I was, and I didn't feel that at all. I felt like I had very much, like Todd [Willingham], taken a path of self-preservation.

There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint,'Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery.' This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue come to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust,'My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket.